Within you, there's somewhere between your heart and gut area (some say it's in heart or gut area, depending upon the person), there is a voice. It's a feeling that comes off as a voice. It's a feeling without an emotion. It's always calm no matter what happens in life. It's inner knowingness. Many refer it as intuition. Some say it's the voice of your higher self. Some say it's the voice of higher power. Whatever you want to name it, what you feel most comfortable with, and I just don't want you feeling stuck here.

I've been completely deaf since when I was one year old. I came from a Christian background and I still live in a state that is known as "Bible Belt State". I have begged God to talk to me, to help me. I waited for a thundering voice from on high and when it didn't come, I felt abandoned. I even took it a step further and decided God wasn't there for me. Sometimes I couldn't make a decision because of the fear that I will make a mistake again, and I am not hearing anything from God on this. I didn't trust myself because I thought that my family knew God and can get answers from God. So I learned not to trust myself and my own sense of truth, my own inner authority. I desperately want God to shout to me from the Heavens or put the writing on the wall when I am hurting. It's easy to feel abandoned when we are upset, but truthfully, we aren't. Then one day, I was told by a wonderful friend: "God doesn't shout. God whispers. Our job when faced with a crisis is to calm ourselves, go within, and listen for the gentle voice inside". Somehow it doesn't seem fair that when we are all riled up and upset, we have to calm ourselves in order to hear this voice, but the truth is we need to do that.

This shook me to the core when my friend told me that. Why? Because I was never taught how to hear this voice within me. It wasn't clear in the Bible, or the church doesn't teach or talk about it. My family didn't say anything about it, either. Instead of empowering us at an early age to develop our personal relationship with God, we were taught that God is removed from us, distant from us and the image hasn't been very loving for some of us. For the whole time, I was completely clueless.... My entire life, I didn't know about this. Have you been there in that place before? If yes, please know that you are not alone, and you are in a safe place to share your heart with us because I have been there, too..... My heart goes out to you.

I also know that we may have this fear of what our intuition might tell us to do if we asked for guidance and we wanted to live fulfilled, spiritual lives, we worried about what course our lives might take if we really did follow the guidance of our intuition. We may looking at our intuition in a religious way, fearing what God might ask us to do. This common fear about life that would be saying like, "no more fun, just a lot more hard work". What became clear to me was that if someone wanted to live by his or her intuition, and if his/her relationship with God was based on religion, he or she would first need to heal that old image of God because it was getting in the way of trusting his/her inner voice. This old-time notion of God couldn't be further from the truth. Even though, it may be challenging and difficult, each of us needs to set aside the information we've received or learned through our religious training and find out for ourselves the truth about our creator.

Remember your goal in doing this is to have an open line of communication between you and your higher self, and in order to get that communication as clear as possible, you have to clear the doorway of old rubble so the door can open wide. I can assure you that once you can get rid of the garbage, or old rubble and find the voice inside and begin developing a real relationship with it, you will discover how completely loving and supportive it is. It will always bring you ease and lightness but first the old pain has to be healed.

If you are someone who has issues with God, I would like you to take some time to write out everything that comes to your mind when you think of the word God. Right now, if you can, get out a journal or notebook and just write all the thoughts, feelings, memories, resentments and so on that come to mind when you think of God. Now I want you to visualize giving this list to God, and ask for the healing of all this pain. If you would feel better taking the list to a clergy person and sharing it with him or her, do that instead.

Your objective here is to forgive God for all the pain you believe He has caused you and to move forward with your relationship with the divine within you. Continue to pray for healing daily until you feel a shift internally. You will know when you've forgiven God and can open that door. It may not happen over night but, believe me, it will happen. Whenever we pray for healing, our prayers are answered. The guidance available to us through our intuition can help in every area of our lives.

There are so many reasons why it's important to learn to hear your intuition.

1. It helps you live your life so much more easily. It cuts out half the legwork because when you ask daily for guidance, you will be given it.

2. You no longer feel alone or abandoned by higher power. When you hear that voice inside, you feel loved and supported. It loves you unconditionally.

3. Your relationships with other people change, your parenting changes, and even your relationships with animals change, because you feel connections that are impossible to feel when you live only in your head.

We often times create our own reality and when things don't work out the way we think they should become disheartened. There is the way we think it should be and the way it actually is. And often times we want immediate gratification. But is what we want really what we need? The fact that you went from disenchanted to a higher understanding shows both maturity and growth.

Wow what an interesting read. This made me think of my own life and how i have struggled to find this voice or acknowledgement that God hears me. I have come to understand that for me personally he doesn't speak directly, but it's something 10-20 moves ahead that is working in the backround. It is frustrating i would be lying if i said it's always been easy. I also grew up in a church backround and to be honest i have never felt at home in those type of settings. As i grew older it actually became very uncomfortable to even attend church for various reasons, but mostly it made me feel worse than when i came. I have struggled with lonliness my entire life and some of it is probably my own doing, but ever since i was young i have always been like this. I honestly wouldn't wish it up on anyone as the toll can be heavy. One thing it does do is puts a spotlight on your inner thoughts and gives you time for lots of contemplation which is where i realized that i do have an inner voice and my own thoughts. It's very empowering to realize this. It is a great source of knowledge and information about yourself and the world around you as well.

Should I fear or should I love God? If I fear God, I can't love God. What I find to be truly amazing is that everyone agrees in religious groups, churches that God is all loving, all powerful, and all knowing. Then interject God's mean, hateful, nasty, tyrannical, and human eyes. We can't have it both ways. So I chose to believe in all perfect loving God because to love God with all my heart, it really wipes all of other flotsam and jetsam or garbage. So to speak of... We love God and then thereby loving God so much that we are gonna do what is right. And that's the truest course of spirituality. Once we rid of all those garbage, flotsam and jetsam, or dogma teachings, we will see how loving this inner voice is.

Anyway, I am glad you realized this. And you are right... it is not easy to hear this "inner voice". The problem is that most of us have so many different voices inside that it is hard to know which one is our inner voice. Over the course of our lives, we internalize the voices of many others - our family, friends, our inner child and we deem them conscience. There are all the voices from society, the church, our teachers, our bosses, our neighbors, and etc. They tell us what to do in any given situation. And then there are all the internalized voices of the various emotions we experience, such as fear, anger, or sadness. Then there's the most dominant voice of all, in most of us which is our mind that is known as the intellect, the voice of reason, logic, common sense, and practicality. All of these voices chatter away inside us throughout the day, and they can cause an awful lot of static and confusion. Like you said, inner voice is like in the background!

Justsomeguy & Loving Silent Voice, Thank you for posting what you did. I grew up with parents who were indifferent to church but religious and felt guilt when some relative would chastise them for not taking the kids to church. That's when we went, or when we visited relatives we had to go with them to church. It never made any sense to me, and like Justsomeguy, I felt very lonely because when I read the bible to find the quotes that people insisted meant something, I found that the quotes were misquotes of fragments of sentences and when the whole sentence was read (english language bible has very long convoluted sentences) it would mean the exact opposite or have nothing to do with what the adult said it meant. So I was cynical at a young age and had no use for church. Luckily my parents didn't force us to go, except when my dad had been chastised by a realtive. And if we were invited by a friend to a different church, we were allowed because my mother thought we need as much information as possible before we decide what we believe. She even had a big fight with her family because she would not baptise us as babies. She said the baptism would be up to us individually, not up to her due to pressure from relatives. I still appreciate her attitude about that. As for who god is, we all have to make that choice of belief because the proof of any of it is subjective. The physical proof is there, the planets, the trees, the rocks, the people, the animals, but it is not considered proof. There is nothing wrong, in my opinion, of being an atheist, or a muslim, or a christian, or what ever belief but there is a lot wrong with trying to force others to submit to your beliefs and I have had too much experience with people who call themselves christian trying to make me submit to them and their beliefs to the extent that the word christian is a trigger word for me. I have been working on that and acknowledge it is a trigger that I have control over. It no longer sends me in to anger just seeing or hearing the word, but I still do not trust any business that has the phrase "good christian" on their sign or advertisement. I think I would have the same reaction if it said "good muslim" or "good buddhist", but I have never seen that. :) We all have to take responsibility for our thoughts, fears and actions. God is not an entity, vengeful or loving, but an energy/reality that permeates everything. That is my understanding and I talk to animals, rocks, computers, trees, what ever I feel like communicating with.

The title of this thread is Inner Development and I think expressing our feelings is a good start to inner development. Thanks. I hope all are well.

Please realize that much of the Old Testament is instructive, but not Divine, discourse. The reason why Jews were forbidden to eat pork in those days was actually because pork was dirty, and there are no curative methods available at that time. So when people became ill as a result of eating poorly cooked pork, the Jews said, "We are not going to risk our people eating this." This was a manmade decision, not an edict from God. Do you realize that during the time of the plague, the Jews were mostly untouched by the disease? Many others thought that they were all witches and warlocks because they were the only ones who believed in bathing. And their food preparation rules ensured good health. Others were eating animals that were already long dead and disease-ridden. So the Jewish people were healthy and clean, while most of Western Europe didn't believe in bathing. You know how you see everyone in movies wearing those gorgeous, medieval gowns? In truth, they were far from spotless, because their owners rarely bathed, nor washed their clothes; they didn't believe in it.

Moses was trying to free his people from slavery under the Egyptians. To do so, he had to make his god more powerful, mean, vengeful, and jealous. But the problem is, we never let go of this interpretation. Even today, we are told to "fear God," but I cannot. Sadly, the First Commandment creates fear, which is the antithesis of love. "I am the Lord thy God, and thou shalt not have strange gods before me." What kind of a god says that? Jealousy is a human trait, not at all Divine. This passage in the Bible immediately sets the tone and tempo for a conniving, petty, jealous, malicious, vengeful god. In fact, fear is a powerful force that drives on this planet, having found its home here. It is nourished, it flourishes, and it's alive and well, usually existing in all of us. But the adage, "there is nothing to fear but fear itself," is very true. You see, I believe in the power of reasoning and intellect. Think. If you pay homage to a vengeful, mean god, what's that doing to your soul? Your behavior will reflect what you believe in, emulating what you worship and adhere to. You become a reflection of the god that you adore, the god that you love. If your soul needs to fear, to hate, to be vengeful, and to worry about hellfire and damnation, then you worship that god. You are then creating a vengeful, jealous god inside of you as well as outside of you.

I have heard people say things like, "God took him/her from me." That would be a god who plays Russian roulette again, wouldn't it? Any god who says, "I want your child" is so cruel. How can God be unfeeling and uncaring? The loving God, the caring God, the omnipotent God, doesn't create pain. Some people claim they are "better" than others, and God "loves" them more. That's never true. Isn't God everything? Nobody realizes that all the great, ancient prophets had the same basic message. What happens after the prophet comes, whether it's Buddha or Mohammed? The simple truth beings to be "explained" by the disciples through interpretation and rebuttal to existing beliefs. It leads to a man made perversion of the original message. You see, most of what we fight in life is simple ignorance. Sit and listen to people discuss their beliefs, and note how sincerely they are attached to them for their own "salvation".

You realize that there is no thinking going on, that only fear and tradition hold power. But, as I've said before, thinking will never be for everyone. Many people don't want to think. They want to turn over their soul to somebody else to "save" it. That's why people send in their money too televangelists. I am not judging these people, but they themselves will tell you, "If I send in $20, then my soul is saved." And that's sad. You, along with God, are the salvation of your own soul. You never need an intermediary. You were saved when you came into life. God wouldn't have put you here unattended.

When we discover that the God of the Old Testament wanted the Ammonites killed, we have to ask ourselves, "Who made the Ammonites? Why would a loving God even take sides in a war?" God wouldn't, for we all belong to the same genetic family.

The logical question is: Why would a Creator Who made us condemn us to a life of suffering and hell? Whatever religious text we read, we still find that God can be good and bad....so which is it? Let's just go with plain, honest logic. Isn't God good? Isn't God all loving? Isn't God omnipotent? Isn't God all forgiving? Isn't God perfect love? They would answer of course, yes. Okay then how can He be mean, hateful, and capricious?

Most of this concept of fearing God and "my god is better than your god" is from the Old Testament of the Bible, which is basically a history of the Judaic people. the Bible was formed to show ancient humans that our deity was stronger than any of the pagan gods of Babylon, Egypt, Greece, and especially Rome. All of these ancient gods had human qualities (for example, Zeus could rape women and Isis played favorites), and you made sacrifices to all of them to gain favor. Yet sacrifices were also made quite often to God in the Old Testament. I have always had a hard time understanding why Christianity insist on embracing the Old Testament (other than perhaps because it presented a history of Christ's lineage), since it certainly portrays a Creator of human emotions Who is in direct contradiction to the type of God that Christ taught about. Well, the reason this text is embraced is because the early Christian church included it in its holy books. Apparently, it doesn't matter that the Old Testament really doesn't belong in the Bible especially since a lot of it is part of the Judaic holy scriptures and books. To get it right, the New Testament should be the Christian Bible, but then most Christians don't know the history of how their Bible came into being or for that matter, the history of the early Christian church that complied it.

Anyway, no matter how they portray Him, God has always been constant, loving, and perfect. Once wee all created from good by God, Who gave us free will, and we all made our own choices. So if we have a loving God, then we logically have to stay with that....we cannot waffle. Once we grasp this logical, well-founded concept, then we are in league with the God Whom Christ loved and followed, and we can see as he did the hypocrisy and pettiness of humankind. Then we, as Christ said, become the temple in which God resides without vengeance, hate, jealousy, or pettiness.

Many religions seem to try to make their personal god more powerful, intelligent, and even more vengeful. They don't do this out of means or spite - fear is actually the common component of the ancient religious teacher's philosophy. You see, Carmelite nuns sequestered themselves in convents to pray for the world, while holy men have sat on mountains to atone for the world for centuries. Please believe me when I say that none of this is wrong - it's each person's individual preference as to how to worship God. I just find it interesting that when you read so many of these antiquated scripts, no messenger ever comes forth and says that this is the law. In other words, it doesn't make sense to have people believe that the only way to achieve redemption is to wear hair skirts, beat themselves bloody, or what have you. How can a loving God want you to mar the temple He/She created in His/Her image and likeness?

I always encourage everyone to read all the great religious works - not just our Christian Bible, but the Baha'i Thief in the Night, the Talmud, the Koran (Qur'an), and Buddha's Eightfold Path as well. In these varied texts, to make your god more powerful and make your religion prosper, it seems that love was left out, and fear, rules, and dogma reigned supreme. Well, do people today take into account the fact that these early writings were basically for an ignorant mass of people who were continually at war and changing religions to that which was most expedient - namely, the one practiced by the conquering nation?

The uneducated can always be controlled by fear, for they have no knowledge or grasp of the basic concepts related to God. This ruling of the masses by fear led to a tradition that's been carried out to this day: ruling educated masses by fear. It's so inbred now in major religions that even a highly educated person, who logically knows that much of what he or she is being taught by their practiced religion makes no sense, still falls into the trap and follows blindly because so many others do. The role of fear in religion plays on the insecurity of humankind. We are afraid because we categorically don't know who is right or wrong. We seek solace and comfort in the fact that there's a full cathedral, church, mosque, or synagogue - after all, if so many people believe in this practiced religion and attend, then they must be right. Religious knows this consequently, they try to convert as many as possible to their own belief. Truth is thrown out the window, for what has worked for centuries is still working, although there are more and more people who are starting to think for themselves and leaving organized religion in droves. Most of them still believe in God, but they cannot abide the stupid rules and dogma that's been handed for centuries and makes no connection in the modern world....especially in light of recent research and just good ol' common sense.

Now, the word sin has come to be used as a part of religious and social dogma for no other purpose than to make us behave and to try to separate "good people" from "bad people," with no regard whatsoever for Christ's admonition to "judge not, lest ye be judged." When dogma becomes too much of a priority, it causes us to stop thinking logically, and even worse, it overpowers the faith that is supposed to be the real heart of every religion. Sin means "missing the mark." It means we've let ourselves down and offended our own conscience. And that's all it means. It doesn't mean God is sitting there scowling at us and reaching for his imaginary list of punishments, it doesn't mean he loves us one bit less, and it certainly doesn't mean we are less worthy or important than any of His other children on earth. Now if they are reaching for their Bible now to prove you or me wrong, and to point to things that we know it specifically says are sins, period, that's fine, as long as they don't just selectively scan it to find the verses that support their personal position. Read every word of it, from beginning to end, and then tell me that you believe it's meant to be taken literally, especially the Old Testament, and that every bit of it is a valid guideline for what's right and what's wrong, what's a sin and what's not.

Leviticus 18:22, for example, is a popular verse for people to point to as proof that homosexuality is "an abomination." But according to Leviticus 11:10, eating shellfish is "an abomination", too. Do you really believe that? Leviticus 21:17-21 makes it clear that we shouldn't approach the altar of God if we have a defect in our sight, which I guess lets me out, since I cannot see things far away. I am in even worse trouble than that, though, according to Exodus 35:2, because apparently anyone who works on the Sabbath should be put to death. And it's a good thing I never had a daughter, since Exodus 21:7 says I should sell her into slavery. But there have been times where I've been "stubborn or rebellious," so I guess my mother need to take me to the outskirts of village and have me stoned to death as Deuteronomy 21:18 strongly advocates.

These old laws that have come dogma are exactly why we must use our own, God-given powers of reason. What kind of insanity do we impose on God? What kind of a maniac have we envisioned in a god that plays "Russian roulette" with people's lives? A god that hates one person and sends him a lot of unbearable pain, and then is really good to another person? What kind of a god is that? It was not too surprising when eventually people started saying, "God is dead." No wonder they did. The god that they envisioned either died or never was.

Unconditional love is funny: A parent may rant and rave about their children or not like them at all, but can you show me any parent who wouldn't give up their life for their children? And we are human. Now take that concept, but magnify it to God's level. Why then do people think that God is going to "damn" them? We give our souls away, not relying upon ourselves. You yourself must envision and act upon your own truth, live your own truth. Depend on yourself first. Then reach out for others who can reinforce you. See the beauty of the soul in you, and find those who allow it to flourish.

They don't understand that psychic and spiritual are synonymous. Psychic means "the ability of the mind to discern truth." That's the definition. If we have to separate psychic from religion, then the entire Bible goes away. If you remove prophecy from the Bible, you've ruled out the first five scrolls, the first books of the Old Testament. If you rule out miracles and paranormal happenings, you rule out the gospels of Jesus. So you don't have much left except the later writings of people who did not even know Jesus. Don't you find it so sad that people who say they are "Christian" judge everybody? Why is that? They are the first to throw stones. They say, "If you don't believe the way I do, you are going to hell." Did Jesus ever say that? No.

Just be yourself. Be the best "you" that you know how to be.

We have split the intellect and the emotion, not only away from ourselves, but in our religious beliefs. We have taken away the emotional side. Intellect by itself becomes oppressive and devoid of humanity. Then we get fanatics, don't we? Is there anything worse? I don't care whether it occurs in business, with parents, with a spouse, whatever it might be. Fanaticism is insanity. When you are in a rational, reasoning state, you cannot get fanatical. You have to think. You have to search. You have to read. You have to be constantly wary of ignorance. When we come into human form, we immediately get stupid.

One problem is that we are constantly barraged by our physical needs: We are too hot or cold; our bones feel too heavy or too fragile; we have to eat and excrete; we have to work despite our headaches in order to survive and feed our kids. Just surviving is tough! Then we are told to add religion or philosophy on top of that, not realizing that survival is religious and spiritual.

Be reasonable. Think in your own logical mind, using both intellect and emotion, male and female, working together. You are both. You have a male side of your brain, known as intellect; and an emotional side, known as feminine. When you know yourself, you know the all...male and female part. Does that mean we have to become androgynous? No. It means the left and ride side of the brain must become united. When we do this, we become psychic. We become infused. Emotion is our most beautiful asset and our worst liability. Overcome fear: You have to love yourself, since you are the child of Mother (Emotion) and Father (Intellect) God. To not love yourself is like not loving God.

Don't you know that God wants you to be happy? Why make such an awful god? you say, "Oh, God really hates me." What? He/She/Energy/ has nothing to do except look at your name, and say, "I hate him or her"? Stupid. That makes God too human. God isn't human, and what difference does it make what we call God? Whether we call Him Yahweh, Allah, or Sophia. That doesn't matter to God. If someone saying, "I think God hates me," that cannot be possible. You hate you. God doesn't hate. Someone once told me that she didn't believe in God, and I said, "That's okay. God believes in you." Did you ever wonder what the word salvation really means? It's taken from the word save. Saving yourself to get back home intact, not just due to your belief in God or the Holy Spirit. It doesn't matter if you believe in God, because God believes in you. Just focus on right actions. Take pride in accomplishment. There is no sin in pride, if you really did something good. And if you feel that you could have done it better, then perhaps you will. We're here to experience and learn. Don't be trapped by guilt if you've made a mistake.

Ignorance is a dangerous thing. "I am the only way" is never true. Highly advanced, spiritual people never think that. They keep truth within their heart, and they live it every day of their life, like Buddha, or Jesus did, like all the avatars and messiahs did in the world. How can we make these judgmental people feel better about themselves? What you can do more than anything is live as an example. You are not going to convince anybody of something. Your message will get around. Not by prancing up and down with labels and banners flying, but because you approach things with knowledge and intellect. It's a tragedy. People who are not spiritually evolved cannot understand a concept based on love. This isn't being judgmental, because we were all there once, too. They only understand through fear, and that's their childlike evolution. Do you know how, as a small child, that sometimes you don't understand "hot"? So what must your parents do? Slap your hand a little bit the second time you touch the stove. That's who the judgmentalists are. They will get there someday, but how much does an eight-grade student have to say to a kindergartner? Not much. You see, we are not fighting drugs; we are not fighting against nuclear weapons; we are not fighting ghettos or racial prejudice. We are actually fighting ignorance. That is where the fight goes on.